


Death and Introspection

by TheLexFiles



Category: Wentworth (TV)
Genre: F/F, Freakytits - Freeform, Gen, Introspection, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 14:42:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11315550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLexFiles/pseuds/TheLexFiles
Summary: Dirt sticks to her teeth, gritty and unpleasant. The top of her plywood coffin has collapsed under the weight. She’s being buried alive.  | A look into Joan’s thoughts about Vera during the season 5 finale. Spoilers inbound.





	Death and Introspection

Dirt sticks to her teeth, gritty and unpleasant. The top of her plywood coffin has collapsed under the weight. She’s being buried alive. 

Joan Ferguson screams out to no avail. _I’m in here! I’m here!_

She spits vitriol, an ear-piercing scream muffled six feet under. 

The grit crunches in her teeth; her eyes close. Her last encounter with death ended by the hands of her saviour, but Vera Bennett cannot save her now.

* * *

Joan’s foreboding presence dominates the corridors and hallways of Wentworth Correctional Facility. Her militaristic strides are followed by that of her protégé, double time to keep pace. She follows like a shadow, believing in the woman who believes in _her_. She wears her bun pulled back and pinned tightly to her head _like Joan_. Her uniform is neatly pressed without fault _like Joan_. To the prisoners, they are one in the same; “the Freak” and “Vinegar Tits”, a mentor and mentee.  


_“You and I are nothing alike.”_

Vera’s words had stung; the first objection was a sign of downfall, of parting ways that could never truly be separated. Joan moulded her protégé with care and trust, broken over the assumption of sameness. That night was to be forgotten, but it was one in a few. Late evenings so often spilled into early morning hours under the dimmed lighting of the Governor’s office, under the premise of paperwork and reports when in truth, they were spent in the throes of dominance and control, of desire and pleasure. Joan thinks they are only different in fulfilling the roles required of them, of dominant and submissive, experienced and inexperienced. She wants the night of the dinner to be forgotten so as to hang on to the nights that mattered – to the nights that did not need words but tender looks and a caring embrace. To suggest they are nothing alike suggests incompatibility, and Joan would vehemently argue against it. They part ways upon entering the prison that day, but Vera never strays too far. 

* * *

When shirt and tie are exchanged for a uniform of teal, Joan remains indignant; she vows to come for that shiny little crown, and lives up to her word. Vera becomes powerless when Joan remains powerful behind bars. Even with the odds stacked against her, Joan dominates. She has decimated Vera’s trust in the wreckage, but the woman is all heart and humanity. By all accounts, she should let the prisoners _have_ her, but when they do, she sympathizes. She has seen more of Joan than anyone has; more of what makes the enigma of Governor Ferguson so feared in the eyes of former Blackmoor inmates, or the eye of Jodi Spiteri. She has seen the _woman_ beneath the uniform, bare all and bare none.  


_Emotions make you vulnerable, Vera_. Joan echoes that of her own father, but dare not admit that he still speaks the same in her mind to this day. She’s uttered the phrase at her weakest point, with Vera looking up at her as if she was the collection of stars in a dark night’s sky, knowing full well that she was fighting a losing battle. She reaches out, awkward, stiff and cautious, but the touch is welcomed – a caress against Vera’s cheek, gentler than she has ever been as they lay awake in Joan’s bed. The digital clock reads half past one. Dark hair strewn with grey spills out over her pillow as she is otherwise still, tracing a thumb over Vera’s swollen lip (an unintentional after-effect of hours earlier). Affection isn’t entirely foreign, but it feels strange when her touch is so often volatile at the expense of her _victims_. To touch Vera in such a way embodies trust in the gesture itself. She seeks tenderness, a raw sense of it when it is just the two of them, alone, _intimate_.

* * *

Joan thinks back to the nights in her home with all her comforts and orderliness. She lays awake, aching and bleeding, assaulted raw and comforted by a woman she does not know. Retribution has found her physically weak – what she craves makes her emotionally _weak_. It shouldn’t be Kaz with her, but Vera Bennett, and she imagines it so when she closes her eyes. Vera’s hesitance falling away with her encouragement, reaching out and returning the touch when given permission. To be with someone she has admired for so long is a relief, one that is lived entirely in secret, but there’s nothing to complain about. They have – _had_ – one another, hidden away from the world and its consequences for hours at a time. Laying awake, bloodied and hurting, Joan survives through the night. Vera, however, cannot rest knowing she should _be there_. 

* * *

 The mob desires a leader. They desire someone to establish themselves as ‘top dog’; Joan has manipulated and connived her way to the top, challenging, _daring_ those to oppose her. People back her. They know of her past and yet, they see power presented clearly before them. She has come for the shiny little crown; Vera is losing her grip. It will hurt her, Joan decides, but it is a necessary decision. She cannot have one last person to stand in her way, to ask her, plead her, _beg her_ to stop. She is too far gone. 

The scales of power tip, failing her favour once and for all. The court will decide her fate, accusations thrown left, right, and centre, spewed with anger and atrocity. They are merely simpletons, women stuck behind bars because they cannot make decisions for themselves. They needed _her_ to rule over them, for their betterment. They are nothing but **pigs!** Dirty, filthy pigs. The rest occurs in a blur; a rope is hung over her neck like a medal, and pulled, pulled, pulled until she is hoist off her feet above a raging sea of teal and white, clawing, clawing, _clawing_ at her noose. As she sways in the air, she locks eyes with Vera across the yard, behind the gate. The irony is not lost on Joan; months ago, she had nearly left Vera to the vicious hands of prisoners, a needle to the neck. She would not doubt Vera to leave her to this fate, to follow through with the contract of no intervention should any harm come to her. There are only a few moments when she looks to Vera directly before losing all consciousness. It is black, she cannot breathe. _It is over_. 

When Joan opens her eyes, shock courses through her system. She is alive, she is breathing. She cannot speak, she cannot move, but it is Vera Bennett that kneels above her, hands on her chest. Panic-stricken blue eyes cannot leave their fixation on the former Governor’s blood shot eyes and raw neck. For all that Vera has become, for all that Joan wanted her to be, and for all that Joan tore her down, she could not bear to see her mentor – her lover – die at the hands of the prisoners. Her crimes cannot be atoned, but she does not _deserve this_. 

* * *

Joan fumbles for the lighter, slamming her palm relentlessly amid dirt and splintered wood. The box has caved in substantially and she cannot see. Panic has taken hold of her calm, cool composure, and renders it for nought. She has been played at her own game, colluded against at the midnight hour. She will suffocate, and die alone. 

         Oh, how she wishes her saviour – _her Vera_ – could save her now.  

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first proper fanfiction that I've posted in five years. Be kind. Leave feedback. 
> 
> Look forward to more Joan/Vera in the near future.


End file.
